Mountains and molehills

If indigestion ever took human form, it would be in the shapes I encountered yesterday while trying to pay for my overdue couch, and today when it was delivered.

Did I tell the story? At the dawn of time, I placed an order for a sofa I saw in a magazine for a shop down here called Mr Price @ Home. Just to set the scene, Mr Price also has a clothes line. Everything bought from it will shrink 3 sizes in the first wash - in the rare case that it survives. And they seem to only hire the mentally challenged. So you shouldn't approach Mr Price with high expectations of service or timeliness.

Nevertheless, the sofa was really nice. So I went ahead and ordered it. It was not stocked by the shops in Cape Town, they said, so I'd need to wait for it to be trucked down from Durban. No problemo, I said. As long as it gets here.

Three weeks later, and still no sign of it, I emailed head office. Um... said the lady, I'm afraid that item has been discontinued. Right, I said, do you have anything else - anything - in white leather? Well, we have the SOHO sleeper couch in eggshell. Is it a light eggshell, I asked. Is it a nice sofa? Ummm... said she, apparently unable to give even the most perfunctory description of its physical appearance. I was sent a photo of it in brown. Either way, I was so fed up I went for it. Also, it was 2000 rand cheaper than my original choice so that, at least, was something.

They gave me a delivery time of just under two months from my original order. The time came and went. I went back to head office. Hmmm, she says. We're sorry, there was a delivery but there weren't enough for everybody. Apparently, my order - though having been mucked up seriously - did not deserve to jump the queue oh no.

Anyway, last week they said it had arrived. Praise be! So I got a delivery time of Tuesday. They phoned - on Tuesday - and said that the delivery truck was waiting for new registration plates (?) and could not make it until Thursday. And, they said, I needed to go in and settle the rest of what I owed them. I'd paid just over 3000 rand for the first couch as a deposit. So I only had to pay another grand, I thought.

As if! I arrived yesterday at the shop. They called up my order. Right, they said, that will be 6800 rand. I'm very sorry but that's impossible, I said. Not only was it more than what this sofa cost, but it was more than the original sofa had cost! And yet she said it with a straight face. I did not know whether to laugh along or call a doctor.

Anyway, she called her supervisor, who called her supervisor, who went and called the district manager, who luckily was still around at the office at just before 6 pm. After an hour of mind-numbing dithering, they worked out that they could cancel my order, make a new one for the new couch and deduct what I'd paid. THANK YOU! I sighed. But the price they quoted for the new couch was just shy of 5000. Fine, I thought, maybe the head office lady quoted me wrong. These things happen.

I pay, and off I go. This morning, to their credit, they did call me at the office and said the delivery men would be there in five minutes. I rushed off and saw them sat in outside the wrong house in my street. They had a paper, saying they were to deliver a sofa to a Miss Northlink (!) in Vredebree or something (I live in Vredehoek) so they'd already been all around Cape Town.

The sofa was a monster. Luckily I had asked for the measurements and made sure it would go through the front door by folding down the backrests. Needless to say, I had to point this out to the delivery men, and show them how to do it and which way up to turn it before they accepted that it ACTUALLY was possible. We should hire you, they said. I blamed it on the BSc in maths, but honestly - it's not rocket science.

Anyway, after a sweaty ten minutes ripping the wrapping off the sofa I realised it almost, but not quite, ruined my until now quite pretty living room. Oh well, it's something to sit on anyway. But it didn't have any legs. And, it said on the price sticker in red '3999 - never pay 4999'.

So I'm back onto head office, demanding legs and my grand back. The saga continues...

Namaqualand blooms

Every year, when the winter rains fall, the arid plains of the Northern Cape explode with colour. The flowers of Namaqualand only bloom over a period of a few weeks, and when they do people travel there from far and wide to see the spectacle.


Unfortunately I think I'll have missed the show this year. Lucky that I'm still likely to be here the next. But to my delight, I found that a similar, albeit smaller in scale, event was taking place on my balcony.

Each year, when the winter rains fall, the arid plains of my flower box explode with colour. Ok, so maybe that's a slight exaggeration. But what I thought was weeds were in fact pretty yellow flowers that now are blooming in all their glory. There is a second green sprout sticking out of the dirt for which I have high hopes. There also is what seems to be a stem of dill which, though not pretty, might prove useful for boiling potatoes, Scandinavian-style.

All this time, this microcosm has been lying dormant, waiting for spring. The surprise kind of makes up for my missing Namaqualand this year.

In other news, I'm hoping to go to Maputo (mozambique) in early September for a couple of African Union meetings. It's just round the corner - but as there are no direct flights I'll have to change in Jo-burg. Debating whether to start eating malaria pills. They are strongly recommended for the country per se, but I hear that staying in the city centre you're safe enough without.

I've also managed to lose my UK debit card. Doubtless I hid it in some 'safe place' because no money is missing. A bloody hassle.

Oh, and the sofa doth arrive! On Thursday. But visiting Century City at the weekend and checking out its black sibling (mine is 'eggshell' - I hope in a nice, bleached hen kind of way rather than, say, an eco-friendly brown way with bits of hay and feathers stuck on) I realised it's actually quite ugly. Oh well.

The hemuls are coming!

This morning, we had a run-through of Research Africa's human resources procedures and guidelines. HR regulations in South Africa are very enlightened and as a result I have a 50-page wad on my desk now telling me what to do if an employee is insubordinate, if I get ill or if I spill a cup of tea over my laptop.

Right now, I'm infringing on paragraphs 2.1 of our electronic communications policy by using the company's e-facilities for non-work related and timewasting activities. Yesterday I infringed on paragraph 3.1.5 of the same by sending emails pertaining to my freelance work ('for personal gain'). On wednesday I was in breach of paragraph 4.2.3 of our code of good practice by working more than 12 hours in a day. And I also found out that I'm pretty permanenty completely off the charts when it comes to following company dress code (para 5.8.2, 'neat and presentable') and keeping the office tidy to uphold the company image (para 5.7.1, 'professional image').

In other words, dad and the rest of the Mumin fanatics out there, the hemuls are strong in this place. For all you others, that is pretty much the same as 'the man'...

I was disappointed to find a rule against carrying spears to work (para 6.2.3.4). I always think that a good spear sets off my shoes and bag nicely.

There is also a 10-page HIV/Aids policy which certainly sobered up our jolly HR meeting. According to it, we may not request testing of prospective or existing employees under ANY circumstances. Nor are you allowed to fire a HIV/Aids positive employee at will. Firing somebody in this country is a nightmare. But firing a HIV/Aids infected person seems near impossible. You have, by law, to give sufferers the extra leave they require to manage their illness, and look into changing their job descriptions as their health deteriorates. It's when you read things like that that you realise what challenges face some of the public sector and industries here.

As a future manager of at least one, probably two journalists, I find the prospect of having to pay heed to these regulations (all of them, not just the HIRV/Aids provisions) daunting. Personally, I view such regulations as more guidelines really. Does this mean I have to start counting the hours I work, start dressing properly and clear my desk? Gee, I hope not.

Third time lucky

Well, that wasn't so hard now was it? A slight shortage of copy meant some briefs should have been cut but were not, and the cover piece really misses a strong critical quote - oh and the back page was a bit of a last minute job. But I made it for 8! And it all prints the right size and so on and so forth. Just need the go-ahead from the printers and I can go down there and check the proofs... Toodeloo!

Be shark-wise!

Sunny weekends at the Cape. There's nothing like it! You can chill on the beach in Clifton....


...watch as the majestic waves pound the rocks on the Atlantic coast side....


...and be struck by the sheer beauty of a 5-metre white shark charging out of the depths...


This sign adorns all the beaches around the Cape. The first time I saw it I couldn't stop laughing. It's so South African. Anywhere else in the world, the presence of a few great whites around the beaches would be toned down. Ok, in Australia there are warning signs. But I doubt they're like this.

"In the event that you get bitten, keep your limb high."

"Most swimmers have in fact, without knowing it, been in close proximity to a shark."

That's reassuring!!!? Especially for the 17-year old lifeguard who yesterday had his foot chopped off by great white chompers at Muizenberg in False Bay round the mountain from where I live.

There are, in fact great whites in the Med. But I've been scuba diving there, and in NO diving books do you see them included among the natural fauna. Same in Florida. A great big Tiger shark on your divers' card is probably not good for business. Here, they signpost them on the beach. Launching out of the sea like the proverbial Kraken.

They just don't care. It's like the cars, and the crime, and the climbing up precipitious mountain sides without any form of security or safety nets. It's your own risk. 'Swim! Just don't blame us if you get bitten - dumbass... Why you swimming in these cold seas anyhow?'

It's a refreshing mindset, for somebody who's grown up in a nanny state. Still, I wouldn't object to a shark net or two around here. I went in to my thighs on sunday, then remembered that most shark attacks happen in knee-deep water and got out again... The water was a bit murky... And I was alone... Just like the poster warned against. Damn signs!

PPT

I'm sorry to rant, but it's that time of month again. I've got PPT - pre-pressday tension, and as a result I'm irritable and emotional. At least the weather matches my mood. The wind is howling and the rain horizontal.

Wednesday next week is press day number three. I'd love to say I'm ship shape, but that would be a lie. Why is it that no matter how well I plan it the stories, comment pieces and news never start coming in until the end of the third week at the earliest?

For this issue, I've a couple of freelance pieces coming through. It was meant to save me time, but hasn't. I was meant to get one today, but the girl who wrote it mailed yesterday and said that, regrettably, she was giving up! She'd never done it before she promised, but she was just not able to get a line out of Ghana, where she is staying at the moment, to Zambia where the story was unfolding.

I managed to find another freelancer to do the story. But I'm kind of poaching him from another news service so we'll see what ramifications that will have.

One comment piece was due to come through at the end of last week. I'm still waiting for it. I think that in actual fact I won't get it. Luckily I commissioned another from some Americans last week, and that should come through today, so I'll have my two comment pieces. But how can people just ignore to send stuff through, when they've promised you something?

Actually, I think it's an infuriating African tradition to let people wait, in vain, for work you promised to do for them. Remember my sofa? Well the glue sniffers at the shop still can't tell me why it's not in my house, more than two months after I ordered (and paid for) it.

Meanwhile, even the presumably drug-free and literate people working at the Apple shop downtown won't call me back to say what has happened to the 20-inch monitor I've ordered and paid for.

I'm fed up with it all. I mean, it would be bad enough if I were merely European. But I'm Swedish. To illustrate my point, I've never has such good service as from the press officers at SIDA, the swedish development organisation. I almost cried when they gave me what I wanted, when they said they'd have it by.

Yesterday, however, there was a moment of light. I had lunch at the old Observatory that is located - you guessed it - in the suburb to Cape Town called Observatory. My companion was the director Observatory, although a while back his title would have been Her Majesty's Astronomer at the Cape. Delightfully quaint, I thought!

His wife made trout sandwiches and we ate in the sun on their stoep [porch - ed], while she told me all about this flower that grows wild nowhere else in the world except for just below their garden. A picture of it is below. It's called moraea aristata. Isn't it pretty? I'm going to try and find a bulb (bought in a shop, not dug up from their garden) for my sister to tend when she comes down. She's got green fingers... Whereas I kill everything I set eyes on.

I'm not afraid?

Who's a chicken, scaredy cat, mummy's girl, sissy coward? I am! Let me explain. There's a peak next to Table Mountain. It's called Lion's Head and towers approximately 1000 above sea level. Seeing as I've got Hanna (of Grahamstown fame) and her boyfriend over for a long weekend, we decided to climb it. Joining us was Hanna's (and my) Swedish fellow Cape-Town based friend Anna and, more importantly, her climber friend Guillaume (not French, Huguenot) and a rock climber extraordinaire.

Below is a photo of the two.

Now, the route to the summit snakes round and round the peak until it gets to the top. Children and pensioners do it! It's meant to be easy enough. But the curious sugar-cone shape of the peak makes it a pretty surreal walk. The smooth slopes make you lose al sense of perspective. The city below looks more like Legoland than a full-scale metropolis.

Alex walking along the precarious path, with Sea Point or Clifton on the Atlantic seabord sprawling on the right.

Hanna. In the distance you can actually see the area where I live. In between the dam and the three tower blocks.

I don't know when in the past few years I developed vertigo. As a child I loved climbing. Trees, cliffs, buildings. But yesterday when the walk up the hill became more of a scramble, and we had to hold on to crampons and chains bolted into the rock with sheer drops on at least one, sometimes two sides, my head just started spinning. I fought off one or two panic attacks. But 50 or so metres from the top, I couldn't go any further. While the otheres climbed up to the summit, I remained on a 9 square metre ledge in a fetal position, eyes closed, trying not to hyperventilate.

In short, I panicked. Here is a photo from below of the ledge (halfway up the remaining cliff approximately) where I could go no further. If you look closely, you might be able to see the four others on their way down from the top. (actually, you can't. It's too far. but that gives some sense of the scale)

I don't know if it was the large vultures soaring below us, or the uninterrupted view straight down into the Atlantic, or the huge expanse of sky and air around. I was terrified. My legs shook. I felt sick. TI had this returning vision of skull cracking open against rock, limbs flailing as my lifeless body bounds off the rocky promontaries. And that nauseating compulsion to jump out into the nothingness...

Still, the view was beautiful, even from where I sat. And maybe I'll try it again... It might be a case of repeated exposure making it a little less frightening. On the way down, the bits that made me cringe on the way up felt like nothing compared to the windswept eyrie of the summit. Another picture of the view:

I commemorated my defeat with the following photo of me looking very scared. Below that is a photo of me and Hanna looking strangely similar before the ordeal that separated the mouse from the men.

Mon capitaine

Is it just me or is Jack Davenport channelling the spirit of that hero of all heroes, Errol Flynn, in the latest Pirates instalment?

Here's Jack...









And here's Flynn in Captain Blood...









Davenport was born in 1973. Flynn died in 1959. With Chevy Chase as the missing link (look at The Adventures of Robin Hood - it's Chase in drag) it all fits nicely...

95 octane unleaded

Oh where, oh where is the petrol to my car? Oh where, oh where can it be? There's a fuel shortage in Cape Town. I had to roll down the hill, petrol gauge beeping, and cross my fingers that one of the downhill garages would have my type of petrol. The third did. Don't quite know why there is a shortage - can't have anything to do with the middle east as Nigeria is practically alight with oil. But maybe they don't want to supply the neo-colonial southern neighbour?

Reminiscing about the summer house

Meanwhile, this place is cold and rainy. But nobody had tried to break into my flat, or my car, while I've been away. So that's good. A kind mechanic even fixed my slightly broken windscreen wipers free of charge. Still no sight of my sofa, however, which now brings it to 8 weeks delivery time flat.

I might come back to London for a flying stop at the end of October. That is, if the Royal Society feels rich in conjunction with a meeting they are hosting of African learned societies and academies. On the way back I'd likely pop to Alexandria for a large meeting of policymakers and scientists. I'll go looking for the library, although they all reckon it's at the bottom of the sea. But just one forgotten manuscript under a cracked bit of two-thousand year old pavement? My hopes are high.

Met another younger cousin in London (she's usually in Canada - my, we're a globetrotting bunch) and she joined a last stand barbecue on a Shoreditch rooftop as the heatwave came to a close and the rainclouds rolled in. Ten brave souls and a bottle (or three) of rhum, aye!

Some photos from the barbecue.

The cousin is the blonde one with the pout in the second picture.

Malou (far left) is still a contender for the 'darkest person north of the Sahara' award, more than two weeks after her sojourn in Croatia.

The host and hostess with the mostest.


Farewell to London, and Sweden from the far side of the world, across deserts, jungles and seas...